8 Tricks to Find Really Great Spotify Playlists

If you're a Spotify obsessive like me, you've spent a whole lot of time mining the curated playlists in the Browse section of the app, and look forward to the much-needed boost your brilliantly personalized new Discover playlist brings every Monday. But even the power users among us probably aren't taking full advantage of all the playlist greatness that exists in the Spotify-verse. Here are some of the best tricks for finding the most excellent music to match your mood at any moment.

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Follow your Discover Weekly playlist, and save it every week

If you're not already following your Discover playlist -- that brilliant batch of tracks that refreshes every Monday morning, curated with AI to match your personal tastes -- stop what you're doing and do that right now. Additionally, since your previous week's Discover playlist is wiped clean at the beginning of every week, it's wise to make a habit of manually copying them each into one master Discover playlist, in case you don't get around to listening one week, or want to revisit a track you really liked but forgot to save.

Pull together the ultimate themed playlist based on what other people are listening to

The exceptionally helpful Playlist Miner app is built on the premise that the best DJ is everybody. It aggregates the best tracks from the most popular public playlists other people on Spotify have made, and turns it into one giant playlist. So, for example, if you wanted to quickly pull together an epic workout mix or fresh party playlist you would simply type "workout" or "party" into the search bar and let it go to town. Once it's done trolling, it'll present you with the top-100 tracks that match that search, and allow you to save it as its own playlist.

Build out an entire playlist based on a single song you like

If you've ever tried Spotify Radio, then you know that you can create entire stations based on a single artist -- sort of like Pandora -- queueing up sonically similar tunes from a variety of other artists. Trouble is, you can't listen to the stations offline. Enter MagicPlaylist, a Spotify app that will automatically generate an entire playlist based on a single song you like, which you can save and listen to whenever you want -- online or off.

Organize your library of existing playlists like a boss

Playlist Manager is an app that does exactly what its name suggests. Connect it with your Spotify account and it provides a bird's-eye view of all your playlists and makes it incredibly easy to move and sort tracks among them all at the same time. If your playlists are a jumbled mess of vaguely themed tunes, this will fix you up right quick.

Get brand-new tracks that tastemakers are listening to

Spotify recently launched its series of six "Fresh Finds" playlists. If you're the type of person who basks in being the first cool kid to know about new music, you should absolutely get in on this. All six playlists, each of which represents a different genre, are updated every Wednesday with 30-50 new tracks based on the listening habits of certain Spotify users the company has identified as early adopters of new music. You can track them down in the Browse section, but here're some direct links to make it easier: Fresh Finds (breakout tracks across all genres), Fire Emoji (rap and R&B), Hiptronix ("equal parts pop and electronics"), Six Strings (guitar-driven), Basement (electronic), and Cyclone (experimental).

Scope out artists playing near you tonight

If you want to get a feel for the sort of live music you could go check out tonight, the app Music Tonight is here to help. Once you connect it to your account, it pulls the names of bands and artists that, according to local listings, are scheduled to play at venues in your area tonight, then builds out a playlist with their most popular Spotify tracks.

Hear what your favorite band played last night

Want to relive the Radiohead concert you saw, or feel like you were actually at that sold-out Beyonce show? Pull up the The Set Listener app, type the relevant artist, and using data from the site Setlist.fm, it'll cull together a playlist that mimics the setlist of their most recent show.

Go international and hear what people around the world are listening to

Topsify is one of the best Spotify playlist curators out there. It's got you covered with solid themed playlists (similar to the ones Spotify curates itself, categorized by mood, genre, and more) that you can queue up in an instant, but it offers a whole lot more variety when you select a different country from the drop-down menu. So, for instance, if you want to know what the party people in Brazil are listening to right now, switch to Brazil and it'll not only give you a diverse selection of top-40 picks, but some interesting themed lists, too.

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Joe McGauley is a senior writer for Thrillist whose Mondays have sucked slightly less since Discover playlists came into his life.